Thanks to my friends at Minted, I received some beautiful art to hang up when our house is built. I have bought quiet a few of home decorations since we purchased land, and Jay had to make me promise him that I won’t buy anymore until we are actually moved in. But I can’t help it! I am soooo excited and am so excited to decorate. The past 6+ years of living in our current house, it has been decorated ZERO since we had planned to demolish and renovate every single year, so why even bother to decorate when we were going to rip out the carpet, the walls, get new paint and everything? So my desire to decorate has been built up from all these years, and also, I grew up in a house where there were no decorations except for picture frames up on the fireplace mantle. My mom has had the same pictures, same picture frames and this sunflower wreath on there for all of my childhood years and even now! It’s the same sunflower wreath during Easter, Summer, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas! There are not one other picture or any decor hung up in any other part of the house. I remember growing up in our house and thinking to myself that one day when I get my own house, I was going to decorate my house so cute. And that day is near! AHHHH, I am so excited!

I thought this giant painting would look beautiful near the mudroom or the entryway to our house.

I browsed around Minted with my two daughters and had them each pick out any painting they wanted, and they chose these two, one of them the same as mine! Haha, she calls herself “mommy’s mini-me” so I was not surprised. My other daughter loved this sunset painting because she said it would be perfect for her bedroom so it can “relax her” when she lies down on her bed to go to sleep.

They have so many other beautiful paintings, you can even hire an artist from the website to have them do a custom painting just for you! How cool is that? Check out Minted.com to see all the arts they have to offer.

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We bought land to build our dream home! If you follow me on Instagram, you already know this but this is the first time I’m posting photos of our land!

This is about the width of our lot, it is pretty wide, but it is deeper than it is wide, it just doesn’t look like it from this view. We were very picky with the things we wanted in our land and knew we wouldn’t be able to find everything we wanted and would have to compromise on some, but luckily we found a lot that had everything on our list.

Criteria for our dream lot:

Flat land & neighborhood. I dream of riding bikes or scooters with my kids around the neighborhood and the house we live in now has a little hill which has prevented us from going on more rides than we would like to.

At least 1/2 an acre.

The shape of the land is ideal(a tall rectangle would be the most ideal), but it can’t be an odd shape. One lot we liked the location of and the price had an hourglass shape, it was so odd!

Price to be under $230,000 max. It kills me we have to spend so much on just a lot. That’s like a house in itself!

The neighboring houses aren’t super close to ours. We like houses to be further apart from each other for more privacy.

A stubbed land, meaning it’s ready to build with water, plumbing, gas, electrical lines all installed and ready. I think that’s what Jay told me anyway. To stub it ourselves would have cost over $10,000.

On the cul-de-sac.

No HOA.

Fireworks zoned.

Good location.

But we ended up finding one that’s better than our list! It has all of the things mentioned but it’s at the end of the cul-de-sac which is a bonus and it was cheaper than our maximum budget, and it’s 1 acre. We have been praying to find an ideal land and I believe we definitely had the universe helping us.

So let’s look at more pictures!

This will be the view from our backyard. The left side of our lot is this giant horse pasture.

This shows more accurately how deep out land is, the black truck is parked at the end of our lot.

The view of the horse pasture from the end of the road in our cul-de-sac.

I am so excited to move! Did you know that I absolutely hated the house we are living in now? I think living in a house that has nasty carpet from when this house was built in the 60’s, everywhere, and I mean everywhere, including the bathrooms, kitchen, hallway, you name it, will make you feel that way after living in it for 7+ years, when you were promised it would be replaced and renovated the last 7+ year of living in the house. I have changed my attitude since then when my then 2 yr. old ran around the house exclaiming, “I love this house, I love this house!!!” one night after eating dinner. It took my son saying that to make me look at my house from a new perspective and realize that my home is beautiful because it’s filled with love, compassion, forgiveness, lots of laughter, and respect. My kids come home knowing that they will be safe, supported and loved no matter what. I come home knowing that I have a husband that loves me so much and my kids whom adore me so much that they never seem to want to leave me alone. That’s actually my husband too. 🙂

So a home is not what it looks like but what it feels like. And I am so grateful that we have been safe in our house and haven’t had the need to file any claims from damage or accidents, knock on wood! So while I’m super excited about our new house, I know the only difference will be the appearance of it because the feeling and the love that resides will be exactly the same, which is what truly makes a beautiful home. I will miss it because of all the memories we made in this home.

Some things we’ve learned as we bought land has been saving us a lot of money so I wanted to share them with you.

6 Tips For Home Building:

Did you know that you have to put 25% cash down when buying land? Start saving now.

Buy land without a realtor. We already found the lot ourselves by looking online and were able to save 6% by not using a realtor.

Be the sub-contractor yourself, instead of hiring a builder or a contractor. Did you know that you pay a contractor 25% of the cost of your house, for them to sub-contract to various others? That is SO much money! If it’s a $400,000 house you are building, you are paying the contractor $100,000. It will definitely be more work on your part in trying to hire people from every aspect of building and will require a lot more time, but I think it’s worth it.

Do not build with the mass building companies such as Ivory Homes, if possible. I talked to several different people who know much about construction and building and they have all told me that those mass builders care more about quantity over quality. They will do it fast and quick, use cheaper materials and if you want to customize any single thing, they’ll overcharge you a ton. You can build your house using much higher quality materials for the same price or less than what these mass builders charge. If you don’t have a choice but to go with one of the mass builders, I would do lots of research, ask people around, read lots of reviews, and find a smaller, honest and reputable company that also does custom building as well as mass building. I am sure there are good ones out there!

Instead of being on a 30-year mortgage plan, do a 20-year or better yet, a 15-year! Downsize the house if you have to, in order to be on a shorter mortgage plan. We are on a 15-year mortgage plan with our current house right now and the money we are saving from a 30-year mortgage interest is enormous. Build a house a little less than what you can afford from a 30-year mortgage plan(if not building, buy a house a little less than), so that you will save tons and tons of money from interest. This is my biggest money saving tip I can give you.

Get a good homeowners insurance. Research and find the best one that fits your circumstances and needs.

Esurance is a company that offers insurance for home owners, along with car, health, life, car and condo insurance. They cover it all! Their home insurance covers damage to the home itself, property theft and damage, and personal liability such as when guests are injured at your home. In some cases, the property theft can cover away from the house such as getting your laptop stolen from your car. They offer easy-to-use online and mobile experience by providing intuitive tools that help take the hassle out of insurance. They offer 24/7 hour customer service so you can file claims or contact them anytime of the day, offer cash-saving discounts on your policy and offer property theft and damage I mentioned.

As we’ve been looking at home insurance for our future dream home, I have been impressed with how Esurance is simple and easy to use, on their website and on their mobile app. You can manage your policy, file a claim, get a quote all through their website or app. They have over 80+ years of experience in insurance with a “A +” rating which is very impressive!You can go to Esurance to get a quote on your house and find out more about the company.

So is anyone else not liking the place they are living in now? What do you wish was different?

I started a new Instagram account My French Farmhouse, of everything home, from inspirations to

pretty white houses around my neighborhood and updates on our home building process.

Hello! My name is Sarah and I am so happy to have you here! Here you'll find DIY sewing, DIY home building & decor, honest and vulnerable posts of motherhood and snippets of my family. We are building our dream house and will update you regularly on our whole process from start to finish and I am also starting a mother-daughter sewing series. So I hope you stay awhile!

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